Wish List
These are some feature requests. There is no guarantee that any of them will actually be implemented. Note that just listing features you would like may not be the most effective way to get them implemented. What would be helpful is an explanation of why a feature would be useful (preferable to more people) or a description of the problem it solves. ---- Project-Wide using HotKEys : Current version of XFce allow manage only 10 hotkeys. Why only 10 ? It's very uncomfartable... I tried to change this number manually in configurations files, but it's not working. Can you increase number of configurable hotkeys till 30 ? Or maybe make number of hotkeys unlimited ... P.S. Sorry for my bad English. *New Logout/Quit Dialog - The current Logout Dialog is ugly, in default configuration you have to to 4! clicks to shutdown your computer. Also there is now posibility to Hibernate/Send to Sleep. I found this proposal someone made for Ubuntu, would be nice to have this ore something like that in XFCE logout-dialog-proposal * Full keyboard control (ability to work without mouse) - e.g. being able to open desktop menu, navigate through it, focus apps in systray, bring up the logout/shutdown dialog, show/hide/navigate xfce-panel etc. Just try to pull out your mouse (simulating USB breakdown) and watch how helpless user gets in xfce. XFCE is great, but depending only on mouse (or keyboard only) is not good. * UNIX philosophy. Make simple applications that do one thing well, and don't get in the way of the user -- in the GUI. Do NOT take the kitchen sink approach. In this spirit, make an image viewer that is intuitive: PgUp/PgDn scroll up and down in the current directory, can print graphics nicely, and integrates with xffm so that you can print a series of images with right-click, with advanced options. Similar to M$'s Picture and Fax Viewer -- a very good app. * KILL applications with one click: It would be really handy to be able to just easily kill the affiliated process by an item in the right-click dropdown on the titlebar of a (perhaps hanging) program/window (e.g. the WindowMaker environment has such functionality). BTW: Great desktop environment! ** xkill * A MacOS X type system where commandlines are given up for a clear and concise GUI based system || Care to explain this? Taking somewhat of the Apple approach to UI design. Clear and concise menus, no reliance on the Terminal to make commands, an easier to use Installer and general usage. GNOME and KDE are right now User Un-Friendly; there is no thought that they should be offering a better product. Just OSX pops to mind at being something that isn't a Unix or Windows knockoff, as many of the Linux UIs feel. Add functionality and flavor while keeping the user expierence straightforward and simple, and letting things like the Root Terminal be for people who know what they want and what they are doing. Just being thoughtful in general.. Maybe auto mounting Fat32 partitions? -- So, you are really expecting a small project with a handful of part-time developers to provide you with an environment that is intergrated with a the system in a way similar to that of a a multi-million dollar company that has total control over the hardware their programs are being used on? I'd say that is a bit much to ask. We will not be able to even provide the same kind of integration GNOME or KDE provide. The integration you desire should really be provided by the distributor and could include Xfce as desktop environment. That said, we do try to keep things simple and make all configuration available through the GUI. -- Jasper 11:11, 2 Apr 2005 (CEST) * More usuability testing to determine what works and what doesn't (looking outside the developers shell to see how users actually use their system) || wtf? How much resources do you think we have? Suggestions for improvements, fine, but this is just ludicous. Or are you stepping up to pay and organize such a study? We'd be very interested in the results... || You guys arn't GNOME or KDE, but both have been known to disregard to user feedback. I'd just list to see a Linux UI that works with, instead of against, the user. Common sense choices to design and all that. -- Really, that doesn't mean anything. And, yes, we will make choices against wishes of some of our users, that is part of maintaining software. GNOME/KDE don't work against the user, they may make decissions that some people dislike, but that is something entirely different. Please feel free to make suggestions, or help out providing the best possible user experience, but please don't start with these vague assertions about common sense and disregard for the user. -- Jasper 11:11, 2 Apr 2005 (CEST) * A way to associate file extensions with programs (the 'remember' doesn't work good enough). Like .mp3 run with xmms, etc. Or better file recognition. Great job, xfce4 is sweet :P ** It would be great if it used magic. A simple system-wide filetype-program list in /etc, overridable by the user in its $HOME. * Please replace the ugly Rodent stock icons with something good looking. ** We like it. ** Is it possibile to replace every Icon used within XFce with a theme? Or are some of them "hard coded" f.e. in Xffm or within XFce Settings Manager? ** Not sure. Probably not yet 100% (settings manager), but it certainly is the goal. * Setting Default Browser. It's very bad that there is no way to change/set the default browser in the interface especially since several of the default menuitems & buttons of a fresh XFCE4 system relies on a browser (most importantly the MANUAL...). It gets even worse when the errormessage is "no mozilla browser" when you definitly have a mozilla browser on your system (just Firefox, not Seamonkey/appsuite). This makes the entire DE seem broken from start and there is not even a FAQ entry on the webpage for how to fix this. First impressions are important and this should be something really easy to fix :) || You are only allowed to say 'should be easy to fix' when you back it up with a patch ;-) * Kiosk mode (no configuration changes / changes to panel / ... possible) || there is a kisok mode: http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?t=1210 * Provide importation and conversion of XFce3 "xfce3rc" information into the XFce4 "xfce4rc" XML format as applicable. * Take the workspace naming function out of xfdesktop and put it into the lib-? / mcs-? so panel, xfdesktop, switcher, pager and xfwm4 can all access it without having xfdesktop or one of the others running.(switcher should be able to get/have names even if xfdesktop is not running!); maybe add name_function to xfwm4 so it can be used on other DEs. * Add a delay to the hiding taskbar, iconbox and panel. That way the mouse doesn't show it so fast and get in the way of my windows when working in a window and not wanting the taskbar or panel. || use a slider like the keyboard repeat speed so the user can choose the time for the delay to un/hide from 0 - 1000 millisec. * Options in the Control panel to turn xftaskbar and xfce4-iconbox to be turned on and off instead of having to open a term to kill them or restart them when wanted. (Have noticed confusion among new users on how to get them to work or gone.) * Minimized icons on desktop (as in CDE). This would be for all the Unix Sys Admins (like myself) who have used CDE for years and prefer desktop minimized icons rather than a task bar. I find the taskbar close to useless when there's 10 or 15 programs running. Not having CDE-like minimization to the desktop is the reason I still use a XWindows emulator on a Windows host to do Unix sys admin work rather than Linux. || fixed in SVN * Meta-theme handling: A method by which people can distribute "meta-themes" that will set the following module themes. ** xfwm theme ** backdrop ** panel theme ** session manager theme * Completely switch to freedesktop.org's icon theme proposal. http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-theme-spec * Could we perhaps try to reduce the number of packages. Ideas (please add more): ** a panel-plugins package in extras instead of separate plug-ins. ** xfce4-libs - I think it's perfectly OK to distribute the three libs in one package. ** xfce4-themes - Reduce the number of themes for the panel, gtk-xfce-engine, xffm, xfwm4 to 2 for each package and move all other themes here? ** xfce4-data/media - Docs, background pictures, sounds(ha!) and other files that the user doesn't need for a working base installation.|| I need my xfsound! * This is unlikely to happen, but I think a more consistent and simple naming scheme would add quite a bit to XFce's usability.|| at least make a standard for all future names, e.g., xf or libxf. ** xfce-mcs-manager, startxfce4, xfce4-about, xfhelp4 <- That's fairly confusing.|| libxfcegui4 ;? * It's not entirely obvious that there is a users mailing list for XFce4. Questions which are really meant for the users list sometimes end up on xfce4-dev. Suggestion: merge xfce-dev and xfce4-dev to xfce-dev, or add a xfce4-users list. * Have a list of all applications on the desktop when doing ALT TAB ( Switch To.. )|| conflict: some *nix applications expect ALT-TAB and TAB to be available to switch between widgets in the ap. **Think the point was to list all windows on the current desktop in the Switch to... dialog, not just the one that has current focus. It's just so much easier when you can see how many steps it is to the window you want. ** Yeah, I believe there was even a patch for this. I agree it would be nice. -- Jasper 08:09, 24 Mar 2005 (CET) * To make use of Xinerama more convinient : Keyboard shortcuts and Window buttons/menus to transfer windows to different screens. * localized documentation... * Enable keyboard scripts for foreign languages (like: spanish, hebrew etc.) || what are keyboard scripts? ** Answer: Keyboard scripts are the settings of the letters on the various keys of the keyboards, which support more than just english. You may see what I mean at the KDE Control Center's Module that deals with the languages. - Ilan (mail me for more info simon100@netvision.net.il) *** I've done this with mine -- so I can type in Hebrew, Greek, and Chinese. It is rather simple as XFCE is GTK2. #1: install scim + the IM methods you want. #2: add the following to your .Xsession (before startxfce4) LANG=en_US.UTF-8 export LANG XMODIFIERS="@im=SCIM" export XMODIFIERS GTK_IM_MODULE="scim" export GTK_IM_MODULE scim -d& Note: substitute your own language for LANG=en_US.UTF-8. Note #2: adding a keyboard input method takes system resources. If you don't NEED one, there is no need to include it. If you do need one, SCIM works well for me. * An option to add directories to the search path of AppFinder. * Ruby Bindings for scripting the whole xfce * An easy way to switch keyboard layouts from the GUI (why have I edit the xorg.conf to do this?). Also, an easy way to switch locales would be a nice addition. ---- Project-wide: my main wish is that Xfce stay simple and light and fun! I gave up on Gnome and KDE because they were slow and bloated, and the "window managers" -- Enlightenment, Afterstep and Windowmaker -- aren't intuitive enough for people used to Windows. Xfce is *exactly* the right middle ground! Panel * GNOME applets (not icon dock) support || No. Use the GNOME panel for that -- Jasper || Why not? Thanks.. -- quaqo | Basically, bonobo. If you don't think that's a problem, you won't have a problem running gnome-panel either. || Thanks... :)||for details why it will cause probelms read this interview with oliver fourdan: http://www.fosdem.org/2005/index/interviews/interviews_fourdan * menu launcher should only kept open as long as you place the mouse over it. moving out should close the launcher. Specially if you edit the properties of an application the launcher stays open until you close the properties dialog. ** I have panel with option autohide and then menu launcher is good for keeping panel on top. :) * Multiple panel support. || Each with its own settings, so you can have one auto-hide and the others not. * Combine xfcalendar with panel clock. ** orage-clock has support for orage (=old xfcalendar) * Transparency for the panel! || Another nice way would be to just show the icons. (Easier then transparence?) * Option to change the direction menu launcher arrows are pointing to. (The arrows always point to the right when using Top/Bottom as the pop-up's position) | Aargh, not an 'unbreak me please' option, the panel simply needs to be fixed to do the right thing -- Jasper Isn't this a request to restore "popup position" functionality? It really bugs me to lose panel real estate by having all the launcher arrows on the sides of their icons, making them 50% or so larger for no purpose. Steve * Revamp panel editing to be in line with approaches as seen in Epiphany, Galeon and Firebird: ** Removing, adding and relocating panel items is done using a single editing mode. ** Items available to the user are shown as icons in a Panel Editor window. ** To add an item the user drags an icon from the Panel Editor window to the desired position on the panel. ** To remove an item the user drags the items' icon from the panel to the Panel Editor window. ** To relocate an item the user drags the items' icon to the desired position on the panel. ** See also: libegg, eggtoolbar * Provide something like get_mcs_desktop_border for panel plug-ins which reads the *actual* margins (or, as set in the mcs desktop border settings) * Grow icon's on panel when cursor is over (like in MacOS X) * When setting panel to autohide, hide completely. Similar to KDE's kicker. || This is only possible if you force the panel to be always on the edge of the screen. || Could be an option: floating or edge panel. However, how many people actually use the panel without it flush up against a screen edge? * Please fix the sizes. Use 16 pixel increments of 16, 32, 48, 64 and 80 pixels: ** Please make Tiny to be smaller or about the size of icons used for xftaskbar, system tray, etc.It should really be 'tiny' so make a new "Tiny" to be 16 pixels. ** Small should be about current "Tiny" size - change the current "Tiny" to be "Small" size at 32 pixels; ** ADD "Normal" size option but just make it the current "Small" at 48 pixels; ** "Medium" is really large so change name to "Large" & make it 64 pixels; ** "Large" is really X-large, so call it "Huge" & make it 80 pixels. * Add the ability for the panel to wrap ( like the switcher wraps at medium ) whenever the panel extends beyond the screen edges and becomes partially obscured. On autohide this becomes a very good accessibility feature. * Have the "Center" the panel always stick on the current setting.(It currently reverts to "Bottom") * Make the panel REcenter itself to user settings after any change is applied. * The "Center the panel" function needs clarity. Make the options: ** Horizontal orientation(these are unselectable & greyed-out when "Vertical" is selected for orientation): *** Top left * Top center * Top right * Bottom left * Bottom center * Bottom right ** Vertical orientation(these are unselectable & greyed-out when "Horizontal" is selected for orientation): *** Left top * Left center * Left bottom * Right top * Right center * Right bottom * make the panel Drag and Dropable... So i can move launchers from tree to tree and so on, and no just to delete it and create it again. -Ilan * KDE dock item support (especially useful for licq etc.) -- available in CVS. * Allowing to move menu item between menus / Zacay (sorry for changing the contents in a bad way) * Make the panel refuse window focus * Make the panel themeable (other than just the icons). I want to see something other than a grey rectangle * Change the icons behaviour - right click list the launchable aplications related to the icon, today displayed when we click in the arrow (I know this is a heresy to ?DE heritage but it would simplify the behaviour and make it coherent to the notion that ?DE panel is a kind of menu); in the launchable item, Properties would have current left and right click itens like Remove, Add launcher, Configuration (current Properties) etc. * Possibility to remove the "+ Add launcher" from the launchers * There are still some borders/margins left, making it harder to click on icons (without the borders, you'd just click on the screen edge). It would be really great if they were removed or just made active. ---- Panel Plugins * CommandLine: Command History and autocompletition ! * Allow for different color buttons in the Desktop Switcher plug-in. Need it to be a little more CDE-like. - _Yes, this is a *klemmerj* request._ * Free Space monitor: Monitor showing a graphical representation of free space on mounted file systems. Also, the ability to mount & unmount filesistems listed at /etc/fstab would be incredible useful; think of a small popup list of file systems with size info that can be mounted/unmounted by clicking on them. Add some neat graphics ;) * WMplugin: compatibility layer for Window Maker Dockapps to be added to the panel || danny has started working on this. * Mailcheck Plug-in: Maildir and POP3 support || isn't this done? * Mailcheck Plug-in: ToolTip on this plugin with the number of new#total messages in the mailbox. * Mailcheck Plug-in: IMAP and SSL (for IMAP and POP3) support. Also support for ssh port forwarding would be nice. * A system buttons-like plug-in allowing to execute arbitrary commands. Useful for audio buttons for example (play, pause, prev, next) * Menu Button: Pop up a menu when clicking on the icon instead of having to click on the small arrow. * Extend separator plug-in to provide more features: ** Flexispace: A flexible space property that expands the panel to use the full width/height of the screen. ** Space: A simple empty space property instead of a separator. * Monitor plug-in framework: Accepts 3rd party monitor plug-ins (CPU, HDD, swap...) and draws graphs in different colours using the same panel area. * Make clock plugin skinnable || comment: This is overkill. * Write some documentation for the "Systemtray" plugin. * Make the pager display screens not only in a single row but also using columns, like 2x2 screens or 2x4. || Properties of pager and change number of rows. * Show xfdesktop menu from panel; rather than having to right-click on desktop. || isn't this done? * Taskbar Plug-in: When not expanding the entire panel to the width/height of the screen, have an option to dynamically grow/shrink the panel (and the taskbar plugin) as windows are opened/closed. (- deanpence at gmail dot com) * Make the sound level mixer plug-in work with Alsa as well as the OSS old style mixer set ups, for those of us on laptops and who can only get things to work nicely by editing .asoundrc :) I have recently had to introduce a software-volume control into my alsa set up to control the master volume of everything... but now can't reach it from the mixer plug-in... Anyways, my guess is that most people will find having alsa support preferable, indeed none of the other desktops seem to still be using OSS. ( urbanmuzak at urbanplexus . n e t ) ** It already supports alsa. It is a compile-time option '--with-sound=alsa'. -- JasperHuijsmans 08:19, 21 Oct 2005 (UTC) * add support to system buttons for suspending / hibernating on laptops (extra option to run 'hibernate' or 'hibernate -F /etc/hibernate/ram.conf' as root - perhaps best to allow configuration of command to run) * add front/back end to unix command line program remind http://www.roaringpenguin.com/penguin/open_source_remind.php (An exaple ncurses front/back end is wyrd. http://freshmeat.net/projects/wyrd/ remind is very small yet allows very complex instructions. It is the only scheduler I've seen that is can be used for Jewish Holidays, or Christian holidays based on Easter. * Pager: give focus to the window that was clicked on the thumbnail when switching workspaces. I often switch to another workspace, see a terminal window, so I start to type, but in vain, because the window is inactive. * Icon box: provide an option to display applications from all the workspaces, just like the window list. Maybe even merge the two plugins (they have very similar functionality). * Volume control: make an alternate looks for when the icon is very small -- maybe similar to GNOME's volume control. Right now the bar is just too small on small panels. * Volume control: show only one button to popup the sound settings when multi mixer-plugin instances loaded for the same mix device. ---- Window Manager * Allow to resize windows vertically from the top side with the mouse (and not just left, right and bottom sides and corners). * OpenGL based window/compositing manager? || If this could speed up the UI (which is very possible) I recommend this be implemented in due course. Xfce wants to be fast when 2D rendering is removed from graphics boards. I don't know about all the wobbly windows stuff though.. I'd prefer if this was implemented by playing nice with glxcompmgr (for those that want it). // rob at digital hyphen crocus dot com * Provide a visual representation of window being shaded/rolled-up. The current action of instantly shading is unintuitive to someone who doesn't know what that feature is. A stray wheel action on the titlebar would leave the user thinking "Oh.. what happened to my window?" and would probably assume a crash. I suggest an e17-like blind-up animation. If the user has specified not to show window contents while dragging, a framed blind-up could be used. This could probably use the code for window moving, I dunno, I haven't seen the code // rob at digital hyphen crocus dot com * make the mouse bindings more flexible (like fvwm2) ** which mouse button on which part of a windows for which action while dragging or clicking * Add keybinding for xkill, preferably Alt-F5. Also include xkill in the right-click menu. || Can't you do it yourself? I've done it, you can't? :P * Add keybinding 'Alt+Spacebar' to drop-down window-menu(first icon on left of title-bar) for quick keyboard-driven access to this menu. This will help us Windoze refugees ... ;-) * Add a keybinding option to cycle through virtual desktops in most-recently-used order. Like Alt-Tab but for virtual desktops. This function is called "Walk Through Desktops" in KDE. It does not need to be enabled by default, but it should be configurable for those who want it. * Add the ability to show the location of the mouse pointer on the screen by doing Alt+Right Click, as is done in Xfce3. * Create a key binding and/or key-mouse combo to hide the mouse pointer (e.g., put it in a corner). This is a feature which is useful for removing the pointer from the text being read or written. Sometimes the pointer/cursor obscures text. * Allow having buttons on sides or bottom. Like add an option in the defaults for button_side. (This will allow for more variety in creation of xfwm themes.) * Use the application's icon in the title bar and the 'Switch to ...' window * Allow edge flipping like in enlightenment (switch to other desktops just by touching the screen's border with the mouse) || this is actually already there ;-) Settings -> Window Manager -> advanced tab * Option to exclude empty workspaces (empty as in: no non-pager, non-taskbar ... apps on the workspace) from the cycle list. * Alternatively: Dynamic workspaces. ** Settings -> Workspace type -> %Toggle% Dynamic/Fixed -> Dynamic -> Grey out options (number of workspaces). ** User starts with 1 workspace. ** New workspaces get added when the user tries to place a window on a workspace which doesn't yet exist (using keyboard shortcuts for example). ** Workspaces (except for workspace 1) 'collapse' when the user closes the last remaining app on a workspace. ** Comment: Isn't this gonna fudge up GNOME integration? Many people use XFWM + XFdesktop in GNOME as a replacement for GNOME's shocking choice of window manager // rob at digital hyphen crocus dot com *Let different workspaces have different backgrounds, a la enlightenment. The "backdrop menu" could be workspace specific, or alternatively, the preference dialog that lets you change the names of workspaces could also let you change their backgrounds. * Allow for tranlucency in themes. This could allow both transparent window decorations as well as an easy way to make theme-specific effects such as drop shadows. * Allow themes to have alternate decorations when maximized vs. not maximized. Ex. rounded window corners when not maximized, square when maximized. * Allow themes to have mouse over support for buttons. || Done? * Show the size of a window when resizing. + also show screen location information (in pixels). Make both optional. * Real maximization. Basically when a window is maximized only the titlebar and buttons are displayed, not any of the window borders. See Metacity. Maximizes the viewable area of maximized windows. This also means that a window can not be resized while maximized, and "restore" the window will give it the original size. Right now maximizing window just change its size, but does not toggle a maximized state. ** This is no.1 for me. 100 times a day I accidentally resize window while clicking near its border. || Me too. || Yet Another #1 Prob || Yes, me too, please, this kind of feature should not have to be asked for... * Shaded windows should only display the title bar and buttons, not the border. * Add a "Right-click" title bar option widget next to the "Double-click" title bar option widget. I have added this into 4.1.90 because I like to have rollup on right-click. Then I discovered that you can shade windows with the scroll wheel. I will submit a patch. * Add the ability to disable the mousewheel changing which desktop the user is on when used over no window. * Add the ability to do automatic resize to feet on the screen (as done in icewm). Press Alt-XX and all windows are resized to equal size verticaly or horizontaly. * Add a new placement style (as in golem). If you move the mouse while placement, the window stick to the mouse, and stop moving X second place the window under the mouse. * Make desktop switching from last to first (or first to last if you like) an option. * When resizing a window, the window size is shown in a tool-tip (center of resized window, center bottom of screen, wherever) * A dialog to forcefully kill non responding apps. I know of xkill, but it would be nice to have this implemented into the wm. * Display a wire-frame grid for resized/moved windows instead of just a thin border-frame when the user has switched off "Display content of windows when resizing/moving". The current frame is very hard to see. * Actually focus windows when switching between them with Alt-Tab. The currently drawn thin border is not only hard to see, it adds a third window state (focused, unfocused, selected) which opens a whole can of worms: the selection border is hardly themeable, it has serious problems with accessibility (people with bad eye-sight) and is generally just confusing. * -or better- Add expose (OSX) type features, no linux based window manager does this (apart from a hacked up metacity) just the show all windows at once in a grid would be cool. I also like the minimize to desktop (thumbnail of window) FVWM2 functionality. * Add a prelight functionnality to window buttons (change the button pixmap on 'mouseover') * Add XComposite support (integrate a compose manager such as xcompmgr in wfxm4 and the possibility to activate transluscent with a right click on the title bar for example to avoid the use of transset). * Automatic resizment of the actual window-theme (title-bar) to match the display-dpi like in metacity. * Workspace Naming: The names I assign to the workspaces could appear as labels when I move the mouse over the icon on the pager. * Task Grouping: For each system I look after I commonly have 2/3 xterms+ssh open. It would be nice to be able to group applications together, so for example all of one group could be reduced/maximised at the same time, moved between windows together, etc. That would then let me put all the groups in one window rather than having taking up 1 window per xterm+ssh group each. * Additional keyboard shortcut slots: Right now we get about 7 extra commands, but I have 19 multimedia and control keys on my keyboard. It would be handy to to be able to add as many shortcut slots as we need. * Add custom Window-Preferences for each application like in Sawfish. * An option to hide window decorations behind other windows but not hide the windows themselves. Sounds a bit odd, but it would mean even less clutter where screen real-estate is an issue. Bringing the window decorations back could be done with alt+click. * Keyboard shortcuts. After EvilWM, anything that doesn't allow ctrl+alt+enter to start a terminal feels a little clunky. || You can do it yourself. * When I use xfwm4 under Gnome, the windows snap to the panel even when I turn off window-snapping in the settings and it requires that they go up quite a distance in order to disappear above the panel. I don't know whether to blame xfwm4 or Gnome for this one, mind. * Don't give focus on mouse wheel. Could be option. * Possibility to maximize a window in the "free" desktop space. While working with Glade, Dia and other software that consists of many windows, I would like to be able to "maximize" one of them without covering the others. * An "install new theme" button in the WM Settings dialog, similar to that in GDM. Just unpacking to .themes is easy, but hard to explain to new users, and could be easily automated, I guess. * Configurable Alt-Tab switching behaviour: an option to enable switching between windows in its order. I.e. each individual Alt-Tab pressing switchs to the next window, not to recently used one. ---- Pager * allow to set the focus to a window in a nonactive workspace with a right mouse click on the symbolized window in the pager while staying on the active workspace (like the pager of fvwm2) ---- Desktop Manager * Option in Control panel to set certain menus to the mouse buttons. I personally prefer the windowlist being a middle click and my desktop menu being right click. || You got your preference! || i'm not planning on adding this as an option. i like consistency, and, aside from a few corner cases, enforcing a button choice shouldn't hurt anyone --brian * Add ability to have icons in the menu. I.e. use same icons used on panel. || Use icon-theme standard when implementing this!! - DONE! * In addition to the icons in the menu it would be nice, if the icons can be disabled like in xfce4.2. The way in which they can be disabled in xfce4.4 (http://svn.xfce.org/svn/xfce/xfdesktop/trunk/README) is not the best i think. Furthermore the way described in the readme is only a bad hack, because the icons disapear, but the space betwen the text and the margin is remainig. It would be nice. if the desktop menu and the window menu behave like the panel menu. In the panel menu, there is the option to disable the icons and with this, the menu gets a lot of smaller. No icons in the menu *and* no disturbing space. * Desktop icon launchers || planned for 4.4 ** NO! Why do we need icons? The point of XFCE is to remain small and fast. With icons another unneeded functionality is introduced, bloating the code. We have the root menu, in the future also in the panel, so icons are practically useless. ** I Agree desktopicons are mostly overlayed by the windows. For Shortcuts the panel is the right and easy way to launch. * Ability to have entire folders on the desktop like in KDE or Windows so they can be found below ~/Desktop/ || planned for 4.4 * Add a "Style" option that will force xfdesktop to 'instant apply' changes made to the "File" used for the background or just do it without adding another "Style" option. || i'm not sure i understand this - options in the settings dialog (including the filename) are applied instantly --brian * Root-window Terminal (while still supporting the background image, load a terminal to the maximum size, with a slight margin, to allow for taskbar & panel) * A utility to automatically change the backdrop once in a while (like OSX), or maybe a command like WindowMaker's wmsetbg which can be used from a shell (or otherwise called arbitrarily, like from a launcher). Option to select randomly or sequentially from image list. And option to switch image either at every start-up, or every amount of time. || you can already do this by running 'xfdesktop'; if it's already running, and you're using an image list, it will pick another random image in the list. i'm thinking about adding a timer to the image list function so it can do this for you automatically --brian * Per-workspace backrops! * Visual display of margins when setting them (lines or something like that that actually show where these margins are). * Drag and drop images onto the desktop to set as wallpaper. Dropping image would pop up a menu with Tile, Scale, etc. Also would be nice to have an easy way to set backgrounds from command line, for use in scripts. * Allow buttons (close, maximise, hide, etc.) to be highlighted (like metacity or kwin allow). * Switching Wallpaper Randomly with the time parameter (i.e : 1 min, 5 min, 10 min ...) as we can now choose in a list. * Make the desktop icons obey the Thunar's setting for single/double click. Or at least introduce similar setting in the xfdesktop. * Remove the white transparent area around the icons text. It is visually annoying and not so usefull ( the nautilus desktop way is interesting ). * I don't like very well the idea of having icons on the desktop. They can be very disturbing for a long-run use. So you can try to work around a new way of fastly accessing to a sort of panel where your icons can be. The "Desktop/" idea is not a good idea because users could be used to drop everything on, and produce an hell on the screen. Allowing the user to fastly accessing to critical folders ( like the thunar shortcut ones ) and allowing him to drop easily what he want inside is IMHO a more efficient way. ---- Taskbar * Multiple lines when the task bar is above a certain height, say 20 pixels. ...please? * Add pop-up 'tips' to show workspace names on hover or, alternatively, the name of the ap where the mouse pointer is hovering, or, better, both. * Add a right-click to the taskbar to provide "Properties" and "Close XFtaskbar". ditto for pager on taskbar. * provide a panel plug-in ** isnt this done in xfce 4.3.2? * Add left and right taskbar position options. A vertical taskbar would appear in a corner of the screen, showing the names of applications ones above the others, written horizontally, systematically grouped by tasks, and would have a dynamically variable size, with a layer level setting, ala... BeOS. Hey, I can dream, it's the wishlist, after all ;) * Add a right-click to the apps in the taskbar with a small menu allowing to maximize, minimize, move to desktop, close, etc. Much needed! :) * Now that there is a right-click menu in the taskbar (CVS), I'd like to see a "bring this window to the current workspace" option. Yes, indeed, never satisfied I am :D * Add an option to not show minimized windows in the taskbar (since you can have them in the icon-box instead) * Add an option to show only minimized windows in the taskbar (for those who don't like icon-box) * When the taskbar is set to autohide and a window becomes "urgent" (the window manager hint that makes it blink, such as a gaim IM window), you cannot see the blinking taskbar entry. I would like the taskbar to unhide or have some other way to show that the window is "urgent". * Allow shown tasks to be quickly closed ( with a single click ) using the middle mouse button. Like firefox handles tabs. * Sort tasks by desktop order when tasks from all desktops are listed in the taskbar. This should be at least an option, as having everything in random order is rather confusing. * Add the option to choose whether the mouse up/down event on the window titlebar shades/unshades the window or raise/lower the window. ---- Iconbox * Option to honour the panel's layer setting * Display the number of the app's workspace as an overlay in one of the corners * Add an option to switch to the app's workspace upon click || huh? doesn't it o that? again that should not be an option, it should just do that. || unfortunately it restores apps to the current workspace and not to the workspace the app was started on. || I think it would be better that you can change this behavior in the settings * provide a panel plug-in * Right-click on an icon should bring up the same menu that is brought up with a left-click on the top-left corner of a normal window, allowing Maximize, Hide, Shade, Send-to and Close. --jcoates * Middle-Click an icon should put the window into backround (as a right-click brings it on top). That way a user can quick-check for changed contents of a hidden window and hide it again. Better yet imo: right-click toggles top/bottom. --cmak * Option to group windows under one application icon, using a drop down menu to select individual windows. ---- Terminal * ability to rearrange the order of tabs, preferably by drag-and-drop as well as by keyboard commands * Disable passing keystrokes assigned to "next tab" and "previous tab" actions to pseudoterminal. * Make (optional) tabs switching cyclic. ---- Run Dialog * bash-like completion of commands * quicker launch of xfrun4 * possibility to run as a different user || Simple command: gksu -u someuser xfrun4 ---- File Manager * Command line - (from another user: like the rox "/" button) * Terminal here - (from another user: like the rox "`" command (main reason I use rox!!))(you can already do this. Just add a custom action in Thunar: name " Terminal here" command "xterm &", appearance condition: *, that works for me) * A trashcan for the panel you can drop files on to delete them. * "Create file" in pop-up menu * When you ask for properties on a directory, add the "Disk Usage" count in the background - so it will appear few seconds later on the same dialog. - Ilan * Integrated scp/ftp/sftp (from another user : no, please, keep it simple. One app for one task. IMHO) * Add "address-bar". * Add "fish"-protocol (to access file-systems on other computers via SSH), like Konqueror. :I think this would have to be a plugin, not everybody wants it. * Add the functionality to emulate nautilus or konqueror is the way they display files. Some users find xffm's apporach to file management too tedious to learn. (please don't get too far away from the xfce philosophy ; if i had preferred nautilus, i would be using nautilus...) * Suggestion: PCMan File Manager is a lightweight and extremely fast GTK2+ file manager still under heavy development. Xfce4 developers, you guys may want to take a look and see if it fits your feature goal and platform requirement. ---- Gtk Engine * Documentation of how it does what it does(what is the effect) and how to use it for theming. * Port of KDE's Plastik theme to gtk-xfce-engine-2 || there is already an external Port available. Take a look at: http://www.marcusmoeller.de/xfce/9.1/ || I mean GTK2 theme, not XFWM theme * I'd very much like a qt theme that looks the same as the xfce theme, so that my kde programs will look the same as my gtk/xfce ones. * Relief GtkNotebook tabs :) ---- Print Dialog and Printing Manager * make it support CUPS - like "redhat-config-printer-gui" - Ilan ** CUPS support and job management is present in xfprint 4.2 - JF * make it accept jobs from stdin so I can do 'echo "foo" | xfprint4' and it will actually print the ASCII code... so I could replace my lpr command with xfprint4 - f.e. in firefox print dialog or in some editor or some orher application - xfprint4 has great formating abilities and can do things that other programs canno't (f.e. firefox can't print few pages on one sheet). also having one command for printing (xfprint4) with GUI for every app on the desktop would make the desktop more consistent... (k.kosmowski@gmail.com) ** it can do that - JF * add support (GUI) for psnup and ps2pdf (the latter especially useful for FILE/NONE backed) * Printing via samba protocol... * Add the posibility to print odd/even pages, for those printers which need manual duplex. ---- Calendar *Option to have the week start on Sunday instead of Saturday ** week start is controlled by the operating system. Orage uses gtk_calendar and that has not the option of setting week start day and we will not rewrite that at least on 4.4. Why woul dyou like to use different week start on calendar compared to your os ? * Add option to start minimized in taskbar. ** Done. Added to CVS 4.3 HEAD version. * GNOME-like integration of Evolution calendar. Possibly another plugin? // rob at digital hyphen crocus dot com ** What exactly do you mean? Orage is integrated and panel plugin is planned. Please, be a bit more specific. ** We will not integrate Evolution into Xfce if that is the request. * integration with remind. http://www.roaringpenguin.com/penguin/open_source_remind.php (Unlike Evolution Data Server, it is very small, very fast and can handle complex repeating apointments such as 46 days before Easter, or Hebrew Holidays.) ** Orage is ical based and can also handle rather complex repeatin appointments. *** Ical can't solve easter, or Jewish Holidays. *** Remind is able to make an appointment such as first monday of month which is not a holiday. *** Remind deals with lunar calendars, Ical does not (i.e. Hebrew holidays, Easter, Asian holidays) ** We want to keep it esy to use also, so we only add more features if really needed. ---- New Modules * xfproc: a native process manager. The gnome-system-monitor has a huge list of gnome dependencies. Other apps are for gtk 1.x or qt. the rest is for the console. Watch for qps and gps at freshmeat.net. * xfstart: utility to start apps with certain WM_HINTS set. See ksstart from KDE. || benny has started working on this. || bblaunch and bbapconf are also simlar aps(for blackbox WM). || it is also possible to use devilspie for this, though it has no configuration program * xfdock: dockapps support. Stand-alone and as panel plug-in || danny has started working on this. * xfce4-keys: keyboard shortcut utility. xfwm4 should probably not be handling keyboard shortcuts at all (except perhaps alt-tab). * a native xdm (=xfdm) implementation so a user could boot straight into the XFCE world. It could be nice to have a gdm-like, with nice features like graphical login (you click on a person icon to login) and auto-login, but without the dependencies of gdm. ** For me it's a must-have! I configured xdm, but I still don't have shutdown & reboot button. It would be nice to have userlist too. On my gentoo I have only xdm & xfce - I don't want to have gdm. ** For me too! I don't want to install Gnome or KDE libraries for gdm or kdm only... Now i'm using WDM, but it looks too archaic. ***Take a look at SLiM. * xfarchive: a decent alternative to file-roller/ark that doesn't require foreign libraries. || Perhaps you could stick together with the guys of Xarchive! * xfburn: a small and simple CD/DVD-burning app (Erase, Write ISO, make data disc. Create Audio CD is not needed for the moment...) * xfedit: a very basic text editor like notepad. (syntax highlighting?) ** XFCE4.4 comes with mousepad. It does not support syntax highlightning, though. ** gnome comes with gtksourceview, which is quite nice. However, I'd prefer a more flexible approach based on the gtk-subset of CSS stylesheets or direct stylesheet support. Imagine a comment block that is grey-shaded or an enframed if-clause. If-clauses could be shaded transparently so that nested if-clauses darken more and more from level to level. The point is that having a .css file for each supported language would make it more easy to customize the highlightning and to let the code look more readable like a real document . * xfview: Image viewer like gthumb with "rotate" and "save as..." functions. * A document viewer for pdf, ps, dvi, etc. files. (plugin architecture?) ** See ePDFView * xfbrowse: a gtk-webcore, dillo or gecko based internet browser. ---- * xfmua how about a small mail user agent like mutt but for X whith mh mbox and maildir support ? xfglob-like plugin for thunar something to find files, app finder is really handy but sometimes the file is not an app. CPU % of processes in taskmanager to see if a process in bahaving badly and should be killed Documentation * documentation about the two-state launcher please ---- Bugs Please use http://bugs.xfce.org/ for bug reports